Social capital not only forms and functions at the individual, group, and organizational
levels, but also permeates and transcends the political and geographic boundaries of nation-states.
This paper examines transnational ethnic social networks based on ancestral and kinship ties as a
form of social capital that facilitates economic growth and transformation in a transborder subregional
context. Transnational ethnic social capital works by gluing multiple economic actors on
opposite sides of a border together and by lubricating economic transactions among them. When
purposefully mobilized by government policies, transnational ethnic social capital in turn induces
more responsive and e¤cient policy initiatives and implementation. This paper also considers
whether ethnic social capital is both a necessary and su¤cient condition for successful transnational
subregionalism by demonstrating its interaction with certain crucial complementary or contradictory
factors.